A Progressive Member of Society
by crackficwhores
Summary: [CRACKFIC] Gaara's therapist has diagnosed him with an antisocial personality disorder. Thus he bestows unto Gaara the Ultimate Assignment: to become a progressive member of society! Madness ensues.
1. Mr Bear and Movie Star Smiles

**Short, sweet, & simple: **Crackfic. Created by Annette and Bertha. Or Bertha and Annette. Whichever floats your boat.

**Summary: **Gaara's living in Konoha with Temari and Kankuro. He's seeing a therapist who diagnoses him as antisocial. He gives Gaara the ultimate assignment: to become a progressive member of society.

**Warning:** It's a crackfic. Watch out for major OOC-ness and crazy pairings/happenings. Random and horrific cussing/swearing AKA profanity to the highest power. All research on psychobabble was HALF-ASSED. Do not trust our psychobabble or diagnoses or prognoses or whatever other noses we may put in here. You have been warned.

**Rated:** Monkey. Er, we mean M.

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**A Progressive Member of Society**

**Chapter I:** Mr. Bear and Movie Star Smiles

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"Gaara, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

There was a pause as Gaara stared at the therapist with his dull green eyes. He didn't really expect him to answer, did he?

"Now, don't you want to know what that news is?"

Apparently, he did. That was another fact supporting the fact that this therapist had no idea who he was dealing with. Not that Gaara expected him to, but the guy could have at least tried.

Again, there was a pause. The phone rang, interrupting their bout of silence.

"Excuse me a moment," said Mr. Bear, as he picked up the phone, "this will only take a second." His shining, black eyes gleamed in the light as he spoke animatedly into the receiver.

Gaara stopped his gaze from wandering and continued to glare menacingly at Mr. Bear, as though meaning to drill a hole straight through his overstuffed head. He was incredibly annoying, even for a therapist. Gaara really didn't know why he continued to come to these sessions. He didn't need someone else to tell him what was wrong with him; he already knew: he was antisocial and vaguely misanthropic. If it were up to him, he'd destroy anyone/anything that rubbed him the wrong way. Who really cared if that meant just about everyone/everything ever?

"All right then," spoke Mr. Bear, interrupting Gaara's train of thought. "Where were we? Ah, yes, don't you want to know what's going on?"

Gaara decided to humour the guy. Why? Well, because lying on an uncomfortable red chaise longue for over an hour, answering silly questions ("If you were a cloud, what kind would you be?"; "How many types of pretzels do you think there are in the world?"; "If you could dance naked down the halls, would you?") was annoying as hell and the sooner he could leave the better.

He wished to Kami-sama that the Hokage hadn't coerced him into not killing anymore. It left his nights empty and himself as well for something he wasn't sure of. He wanted to stay alive and free, and if not going on murderous rampages would allow him to liberally stroll the streets of Konoha without being attacked by a squad of jounins every five minutes, he'd do it. But he didn't have to be happy about it.

Did he really have to go to these therapy sessions just to cure his "antisocial personality?" Well, maybe "antisocial personality" shouldn't have been in quotation marks. But that still didn't mean that he needed to go to these stupid sessions. After taking various online tests and reading up on personality disorders, he knew exactly what was wrong with him. And just what was wrong with doing things that were the violation of the rights of others?

And why hadn't the therapist just given him a bunch of personality tests to see what was wrong with him? Asking him "Which color do you think best personifies the mockingbird?" just didn't seem to cut it.

"Yes, Mr. Bear," he answered in his usual monotone.

"Oh, really," Mr. Bear chuckled. "Call me Ted; it's so much more hip!"

_Ted? _

_Hip? _

_Right…._

Gaara went back to his usual answer of silence.

"Well, Gaara, it seems that you have a few problems."

_No shit, Sherlock. I like to kill people. You don't see a whole lot of people writing that under "hobbies and interests," now do you? Well, not a lot of sane people, anyway._

"You see, Gaara, you have antisocial tendencies. Well, more than that, you have an antisocial personality. An antisocial personality is a personality characterised by a continuous and persistent pattern of aggressive behaviour in which the rights of others are violated. There are times when your demon friend, Shukaku, comes out and you become psychotic. I do believe you're taking pills to fix that problem?"

"They don't let me sleep."

_At all. _

_Hence the dark eyeliner and mascara; it's not there to look pretty, it's there to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. And maybe to look a little pretty, though I won't admit that to anyone but myself and grudgingly even then. I have noticed several other people walking around with eyeliner like mine. I suppose I may have started a trend._

"Ah, well, that's just a minor side effect! They are helping you stave off your eminent psychosis. As you go on in life, if you allow your antisocial behaviour and your tendencies towards misanthropy to flourish, you may begin to suffer from a host of various side effects which may include psychosexual dysfunction.

"Do you know what that is?"

Gaara looked at him blankly, arms crossed across his chest with his legs crossed at the ankles. There was a spider crawling along the ceiling.

"Psychosexual dysfunction includes impotence, anorgasmia, and premature ejaculation."

Gaara stared at Ted, horrified. However, his horrified stare looked just like all of his other stares, so Ted didn't notice this change in his demeanour.

Premature ejaculation? Ted just said premature ejaculation. Gaara was sure Ted had just said premature ejaculation.

If he didn't fix his stupid antisocial personality he would be doomed to be known as the early cummer?

_Wait, anorgasmia? _

_What the fuck is that?_

"Now, Gaara, to keep yourself from developing these side effects, there is only one thing you can do."

Gaara stared at Ted. This was where Ted was supposed to tell him what he had to do, right?

"I've been wondering what could have happened to you to make you this way, Gaara."

_Kami-sama. _

So this was how therapists made their dollars. They stretched their sessions on for hours and talked about nothing and asked you "Why do you think the sky is blue?" It was a conspiracy, that's what it was.

"I think it might have had something to do with your mother dying so suddenly after childbirth. We talked about this, yes? What did I tell you to repeat every night?"

Gaara answered dutifully instead of his usual answer of silence. He'd do anything to find out how to ward off premature ejaculation. "My mommy's death wasn't my fault."

"Now, if only you'd come to see me before that Yashamaru fellow drilled those silly ideas into your head. You've been saying it every night before you go to bed?"

_Over my dead body._

"Every night."

When was the last time Gaara had gone to bed? When he was six?

"Right, so I also thought that it had something to do with having your father try to kill you all the time. I'm sure he was suffering from a disorder as well, but which one? Ah, we'll never know. And then, I'm sure this upheaval from your hometown and being relocated in Konoha has put a considerable amount of stress on you. Having to leave all your friends behind and all."

_What friends?_

Gaara wished the damned therapist would hurry up and tell him how to stop the onset of his premature ejaculation and anorgasmia and whatever else he had mentioned.

"So, to stop the development of psychosexual dysfunction, there is only one thing you can really do."

He paused and Gaara considered hacking him to bits, regardless of what the Hokage had said, and simply Googling "premature ejaculation anorgasmia prevention" online.

"You, Gaara, will have to become a progressive member of society!"

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Gaara sulked down the stairs of the two-story, five-bedroom, tastefully decorated house he was currently residing in with his siblings, Temari and Kankuro, at six o'clock in the morning.

Gaara was sulking because of the horrific predicament he found himself in at the moment. Normally, he didn't sulk while going down the stairs. In fact, normally, he never even went down the stairs. Gaara had only used the stairs of his new house three times. Once to go up and see how it compared to the downstairs, once to go down and tell his brother and sister that he preferred the upstairs, and once to go back upstairs. After that, he just walked onto the balcony, which was conveniently located in his room, and leaped out on to the road below (or occasionally on to the roof of the next building) when he felt like getting some fresh air. He jumped out, and he jumped in. Simple.

So why was he perusing the stairs this fine and sunshiny morning which was so not helping his bad mood?

To have a quiet breakfast with his siblings, of course. Therapist's orders. Well, the therapist had given him many orders, many of which he didn't want to think about. Ted had given him many bits of advice on how to become a progressive member of society.

The first had been to have a family breakfast. The second… well, he didn't want to think about it at the moment.

He got to the floor and shuffled through the rooms until he found the kitchen where Kankuro and Temari were sitting, eating what appeared to be waffles. He paused in the doorway, wondering what to do. What had he been instructed to do?

Oh, yeah.

"Hi."

There, he had said something. He had greeted them. Now, by obligatory rights and rules and this odd thing called "manners," they were supposed to respond to him.

"Ga-gaara!" shouted Temari, her eyes as big as saucers. She stood so suddenly that she knocked her chair out from under her and it fell to the floor with a clatter. "What are you…" she paused, gave Kankuro a worried look and then glanced back at Gaara who was still frozen in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. Oh, right, he was supposed to be less defensive. He uncrossed his arms.

"Gaara," said Kankuro slowly, as he rose from his chair. "What are you doing down here?"

Gaara refrained from twitching his right eye. Granted, he never came downstairs, but that didn't mean that when he did come downstairs that they had to make a big deal out of it.

"Is, is something wrong?" asked Temari, as she shuffled around the table, slowly edging farther and farther away from him. "Did something happen?"

Gaara's left eye twitched and he rubbed at his temple. This was not supposed to happen. They were supposed to ask him to sit down and have breakfast and ask him how his day was and ARGH.

He stalked over to the table, glowering horrifically. "Nothing happened," he informed them. "I'm here for breakfast." He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

"Oh…" said Kankuro. "Well, here, you can have my waffles," he said, pushing his plate towards Gaara. "I'm not hungry."

Kankuro's stomach growled.

"No, don't go," said Gaara. _But if you try to touch these waffles, I will kill you. _Oops, best to not say that out loud.

"Sit down. Let's all have breakfast together."

Gaara watched as his siblings looked at each other and then back at him. Was that some sort of secret signal? Or were they just seeing which one of them would flee first? Was he really that frightening? Why was he asking himself these stupid questions? And more importantly, where was the maple syrup?

As Gaara searched the tabletop for the maple syrup, Kankuro and Temari hovered anxiously at the sides of the table. Temari had righted her chair, but both of them were refraining from sitting down. Temari passed Gaara the maple syrup which had been hiding behind the floral centrepiece.

"Gaara," said Kankuro once more. "Why do you want to have breakfast with us?" He paused when Gaara's stolid gaze fell upon him. "I mean, not that it's unwelcome or anything, but a guy wonders, ya know?" He finished it off with a cheesy laugh which turned into a cough as Gaara glared down at his waffles.

He looked up again as he poured maple syrup onto the waffles. They were chocolate chip. Yum. "Ted said to have breakfast with you."

"Oh, oh," said Temari, smiling and blinking her eyes at Kankuro. Kankuro looked at Temari in confusion as he returned her smile, albeit a tad awkwardly. "Ah, well, that's nice, Gaara."

They both smiled at him.

And suddenly Gaara realized he had to do the second thing on the list of what he had to do. Oh, why, oh, why hadn't he taped his eyes shut today?

He shut his eyes and smiled at his two siblings.

When he opened his eyes… neither of them was there.

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"Step two, Gaara," said Ted, in his crazily loud voice, "is that whenever someone smiles at you, you must smile back."

Gaara stared at him in disbelief. Which again, was not quite so different from his stare of belief, or his stare of anger, or his stare of murderous rage. Well, maybe a little different from his stare of murderous rage.

Perhaps it was because Gaara kept on staring at him that Ted thought he was paying the utmost attention.

He wasn't.

"Well, show me that winning smile!" Ted exclaimed boisterously.

Gaara smiled, or at least tried to. His features contorted into the usual demonic, snarl-like grin that took control of his face when he was on a mad killing spree. His usually dull eyes shone with the manic glitter of insanity and he subconsciously clenched and unclenched his hands.

But of course, Gaara couldn't see this.

But Ted could.

"Ah, right," said Ted, loosening his tie. "Well, um…" He paused. "Well, you might want to work on that smile, there, Gaara, before you try it out." He coughed and moved onto the next order, leaving Gaara vaguely confused.

What was wrong with his smile?

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What _was _wrong with his smile?

Gaara wondered this again as he trudged through the house into the living room. In the living room, atop the fireplace, Temari had made the decorator hang a large, gold-gilded mirror. Gaara didn't know why she had done so (nor did he care, for that matter), but he was glad of its presence now that he was in need of it.

Did he have something perpetually stuck between his teeth? Were his teeth rotting out of his skull? That couldn't be possible, though; he brushed (and flossed) after every fucking meal. (Hey, a guy had to do something to pass the time, right?) And it couldn't be his breath. So…

What was it?

After pacing back and forth for a few minutes, Gaara finally decided to move an ottoman in front of the fireplace. He stepped on top of it, finally able to see his reflection in the mirror. He exhaled slowly, took a deep breath, and then smiled into the mirror.

Shortly after, he found himself cowering under the dining room table.

Did he really look that creepy when he smiled?

_No wonder everyone screams before I kill them. It isn't death that scares them, it's probably my smile._

Most people would have been terrified of facing themselves after such a devastating realization. But most people weren't Gaara. In fact, no one was Gaara but Gaara. And so, it was only Gaara who was brave enough to face himself in front of the mirror again.

But once in front of the mirror, he ran into a little problem.

What was a normal smile supposed to look like? And how did a smile come about one's face? How did the muscles pull and which ones moved first? How did one do those little smirks and those large cheesy grins?

Surely, there was a trick to this smiling business. And Gaara was about to find it.

Now… who could he watch smile? He couldn't watch any people in real life, that was for sure. It would be too troublesome and annoying. He'd never be able to copy the moves fast enough. If only he had the Sharingan, or some sort of machine that made everything appear in slow-motion.

His eyes were scanning the room when they came across the TV.

Bingo.

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Several hours later, Gaara had perfected the art of smiling.

After hours of watching and rewinding and fast forwarding and mimicking, he had mastered almost every smile that a human could make. Well, that a human male could make. Well, he had only mastered the ones that seemed like they would make him look cool.

He pressed pause on the TV, freezing a movie star who had recently made it big as he flashed the cameraman a devious smirk. Gaara looked into the mirror and smirked a devious smirk.

Whoa.

He looked good.

He fast-forwarded to a happy, middle-aged male who was smiling very cheerily. Gaara again looked into the mirror and smiled cheerily.

He was so good at this. He could probably become a mime. He would mime a smile for $2.00. He'd make millions.

Gaara deadpanned into the mirror as he fast-forwarded the awards show to a movie clip of a very handsome half-naked male looking at a very beautiful, long-legged female. As it played out, he realized that he was glad he had found this awards show of Temari's. All of Kankuro's movies consisted of naked people having sex. The only smile he had seen in there had been on the women and they hadn't lasted long. Thank goodness Temari liked awards shows.

He looked himself up and down. "Looking good, hot stuff," he said in perfect timing with the actor.

He turned off the TV. He had mastered the art of smiling.

Now, it was time to deal with his third order.

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Whee, the end of chapter one.

In the next chapter, we will feature soup kitchens and poor people! Yay! Let's all take a leaf out of Gaara's book and practice smiling in front of the mirror!

… We've had too much sugar. ("Correction: _Annette_ had too much sugar," said Bertha.)


	2. All Aboard the 17 Downtown

**Short, sweet, & simple: **Crackfic. Created by Annette and Bertha. Or Bertha and Annette. Whichever flings your ding-a-ling.

**Summary: **Gaara's living in Konoha with Temari and Kankuro. He's seeing a therapist who diagnoses him as antisocial. He gives Gaara the ultimate assignment: to become a progressive member of society.

**Warning:** It's a crackfic. Watch out for major OOC-ness and crazy pairings/happenings. Random and horrific cussing/swearing a.k.a. profanity to the highest power. All research on psychobabble was HALF-ASSED. Do not trust our psychobabble or diagnoses or prognoses or whatever other noses we may put in here. You have been warned.

**Rated:** M for Mad Stalin. Er, we mean M for Mature.

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**A Progressive Member of Society**

**Chapter II: **All Aboard the #17 Downtown

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It was around nine o'clock. It had been a strange, albeit productive morning, to say the least. Gaara mentally recapped the day's events: so far he had perfected his movie star smile, as well as had breakfast with "the family." He had more than enough time left to complete his other tasks.

Damn.

Grudgingly, Gaara opted to continue with the to-do list that his therapist had laid out for him, although doing so seemed to go against all he had ever stood for. He wasn't afraid of premature ejaculation, oh no, not him. He tugged at the hem of his shirt as he peered into the mirror. The shadows under his eyes were uneven! Now he would have to take his time and fix them up with some eyeliner, of course. That would buy him lots of time, right? Lots and lots and lots and—

His evenly smudged eyes looked back at him from the mirror.

It had only taken five minutes.

He mentally kicked himself and snarled into the mirror before finding himself cowering under the dining room table again.

Gaara berated himself as he crawled out from underneath the table upon which the breakfast plates still lay. He mentally noted to never snarl into or near a mirror ever again. Well, at least now he knew what his game face looked like. Imagine what would have happened if he'd been snarling (smiling?) in his typically crazy fashion during battle, when some lamewad (most probably Naruto, the dumbsnot) had suddenly shown him a mirror? Ha. Now he was prepared.

So, what was next on the list?

He pulled a piece of flowery stationary from the depths of his left pocket. Why on earth Ted had decided to use flowery stationary (albeit, rather pretty flowery stationary), Gaara would never know. He wondered if the odd little "tare panda" in the corner meant something.

_Steps to Becoming a Progressive Member of Society_

_By: Ted_

_Always smile when smiled at!_

_Be polite!_

_Be courteous—_

Gaara skimmed down to the numbered list.

_1. Have breakfast with The Family_

_2. Take bus to—_

Gaara tore his eyes from the sheet of paper before he could read the rest of the sentence. He knew what it said. He had just hoped that somehow, miraculously, the ink might have changed formation and said something entirely different. He took one last look at list, just to be sure, but no, it hadn't.

Gaara sighed and shoved the paper back into his pocket.

He'd have to take the bus.

It would be the first time he'd ever been on a bus. He couldn't recall ever being on a bus before. Gaara looked into the mirror from his perch on the ottoman. At least he looked relatively good now; his eyeliner was even. He smirked. It was better than what that Ino girl could manage.

He gathered his sand and walked out the front door, not bothering to shut it behind him. No one was stupid enough to attempt to steal anything from The House of Gaara.

He knew what bus he had to take: the #17 Downtown. It arrived every ten minutes; he'd researched it last night. Even though the bus stop was only two blocks away, he decided to "poof" there anyway. "Poof"-ing always made for a better entry.

There were a few people waiting at the bus stop when Gaara arrived. None of them noticed him. He supposed it was because he was standing upside down in a tree, his feet firmly planted on the underside of a supportive branch. Funny, he'd have thought that people would have noticed something out of place like that. Odd.

Mr. Bear hadn't mentioned anything about standing _on_ the ground. He was still waiting _with_ the people… just not in a place where they could see him. He was probably doing them all a favour anyway; they'd all have fainted of shock once they caught sight of him. He was _the_ Gaara of the Sand, after all.

He grumpily scorned his therapist's ideas, replaying their previous session in his head and thinking up all of the scathing remarks that he wished he had said if he had only thought of them earlier. Why is it that such brilliant wit only occurs to one half an hour after the actual confrontation has taken place? Gaara shifted his weight from one leg to the other as he waited for bus #17 to arrive. It would be much faster for him to just "poof" to there; "there" being where he was headed. He stopped mid-thought, hoping not to dwell on "there" since it was hard enough just thinking about being _here_… with all these strangers who understood nothing about the way of the ninja.

Gaara tried to shake his thoughts off by observing the goings-on of the street. It was quiet, not a lot of traffic. There were lots of houses, each with its own flower garden, pruned hedges, and the occasional pink plastic flamingo, which were, in their own right, rather frightening. Why a rational human being would choose to have a large plastic replica of such a gangly, hideous bird on their lawn was simply beyond him. Did they serve only as ornamentation, or did they have some sort of alternate purpose? And if there was an alternative purpose, what was it? Perhaps it served to confuse prospective intruders by having them question the tastes of those living inside. Surely no one who would voluntarily put something that tacky in their front yard could possibly own anything worthwhile inside their house.

And why was it a flamingo? Why not a stork? Or an elephant? Or a llama? Llamas were nice. Flamingo. It was a funny word. Fla-min-go. Flam-in-go. Flame-in-go…

Gaara rubbed his lucky lighter.

The fire called his name. The blazing heat; the hot, searing licks of the flames; the tempting, bright orange glow… he recalled it all so vividly. The languid curls of darkening wallpaper, the vicious bright blue forks of electricity. He relived the deep, aromatic odour of burning wood, the acrid stench of burning rubber, the unusual smell of burning plastic, and the raw pong of burning flesh…

His eyes unglazed once he heard the steady thrum-thrum of the bus's heart: its engine. Well, he didn't really hear the bus; he felt the vibration via his sand.

The bus pulled up and Gaara watched carefully. He'd never seen a bus unload before, nor had he ever boarded one. He'd have to pay close attention; he didn't want to draw any attention to himself.

The door clunked open and people filed out. There was a young woman who, rather than placing her infant in a stroller, had opted to place him (or her, Gaara couldn't tell; he thought all babies looked alike) in a sling, where he now fit snugly against her body. She helped a very pregnant teenager off the bus and they walked down the street together, laughing.

It was bright out. Gaara realized this when two old woman, one of whom was wearing far more make-up than was necessary, opened an umbrella and hobbled down the street. Why hadn't the other one told her friend how horrid she looked? Surely it was a friend's duty to tell you when you wore something that made you look ugly, right? Except, of course, if it hurt someone's feeling or… what else had Ted said?

Gaara shrugged. There was too much to this friendship thing. An unwritten contract with one too many clauses, too many exceptions. Not having any friends at all made life a whole lot easier.

He peered after the two old women, still wondering about the umbrella. It wasn't raining… Perhaps one of them was allergic to sunlight?

Gaara was jolted out of his thoughts as the bus driver yelled "ALL ABOARD!" and the doors began to swing shut.

His sand was there within the second, jamming the machinery and stopping the bus from successfully closing its doors. He smirked and "poof"-ed down on to the sidewalk. Everyone on the bus was muttering quietly, some of them peering out of the window to glare meaningfully at him. The bus's windows hadn't been cleaned in a while, so all the passengers saw was a small boy, with what looked like a large overnight pack, standing at the door.

The bus driver, however, recognized Gaara instantly. His hand froze on a knob attached to a long lever, which Gaara assumed worked the swinging doors. The sand swirled lazily around the doors and proceeded to open them, creating a gap just large enough for a Gaara-sized being to walk through.

Gaara got on the bus.

And everyone on the bus gasped.

He gave them all a look at his perfectly applied eyeliner. They were all in shock.

_Probably marvelling at my skill with an eyeliner pencil._

He sneered at them, and at the back of the bus, a toddler burst into tears.

_Undoubtedly amazed at my superior eyeliner applying technique. _

_Such jealousy. _

Gaara stood there, staring at the bus driver; he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do. Was he supposed to greet him? Why was the bus driver just staring at him? Wasn't there to be an exchange of something? The website he had seen had mentioned something about a transfer, though he wasn't sure what the transfer was for. Did he have to give them something for being allowed to ride the bus?

Stupid public transportation with its stupid rules.

His sand went back into its gourd and the doors crashed shut with a loud bang, causing the rest of the passengers on the bus to snap back to reality. The bus was suddenly alive and rocking as people banged on the rear doors, all of them attempting to exit at once. The rear doors, however, weren't going to open any time soon; the bus driver's full attention was on Gaara.

Gaara continued to stare into the driver's eyes. Perhaps it was a transfer of… he still wasn't sure. The driver swallowed and looked ahead. Maybe that had just been some sort of game? Did one normally have to engage in a staring contest with the driver in order to ride the bus?

Suddenly, Gaara realized that the passengers at the back of the bus were screaming at the bus driver to open up the rear doors. He wondered what had gotten a hold of them. There was probably some big convention being held that they had all forgotten about and all simultaneously remembered. Or perhaps there was a bomb on the bus. Or maybe they had all gone crazy with jealousy and wanted to go home to better their eyeliner applying techniques.

Oh yeah, he was suave.

The passengers refrained from approaching him. He wondered why that was. They weren't afraid of him, were they? Gaara smirked, and the flock of passengers momentarily froze before breaking out into mass hysteria again. At this rate, the bus was going to tip over. He looked at the bus driver who was staring straight ahead, both hands tightly gripping the steering wheel.

Two voices rang out from outside the bus.

"Thank goodness!"

"Open the doors, you nasty snots!"

"Annette, really, do calm yourself!"

"I'll calm myself when I want to calm myself!"

Gaara turned his head and noticed two figures hobbling up to the bus from around the street corner.

"Open the damn door!" screeched one of them, emphasizing her utterance by rapping at the door with her bony knuckles.

Gaara stepped over to the bus driver, the screams of the passengers getting louder and louder as he moved towards him. Geez, it wasn't like he was going to kill the guy. Yet.

He grabbed the knob and pulled.

The doors swung open to reveal a pair of distinguished old women, both of them wearing matching pastel-coloured suits. They were so old and wrinkled that Gaara found he was unable to discern what race they were. One of the old women was wearing a particularly worn hat from which a large, distasteful feather hung.

"Thank you, sonny," said the woman with the revolting hat. She tottered up the stairs with the help of a cane as her friend followed her. She hobbled over to the bus driver and rapped him smartly on the head, effectively jolting him out of his stupor.

"That's for not opening the door yourself."

"Annette," whispered the woman who had enough sense to not to wear an ugly hat. "Do come, Annette, we should sit down. Don't bother the good driver."

Gaara stared at the woman. Annette? What kind of a ridiculous name was Annette? He snorted inwardly. That was almost as lame as Sasuke. No, wait, it was lamer. Who'd ever heard of Annette? At least people had heard of uke.

He snorted inwardly again before he could stop himself.

The driver coughed. "Uh, well, ladies, and, um, gentleman," he said, hastily addressing Gaara, "that'll be two twenty-five each."

Annette rapped a large metal box with her cane. "We're senior citizens! We get on for one fifty!"

"Oh right, sorry, lady. But, uh, he has to pay two twenty-five."

Gaara blanched. Pay money? Him? He hadn't spent a cent in the whole three months he'd been living in the damn village, and now this man expected him to magically conjure up some change from his pockets? He hadn't spent anything because he didn't need to pay for anything. That fact was that nobody wanted payment for anything. He just walked into a store, picked up what he wanted, walked past the cash register and then walked right out the door. No one had ever bothered to stop him.

"I'll pay for him!"

"Annette, do you really—"

"Bertha!"

Bertha? The names kept getting weirder and weirder around here.

Annette swivelled on the spot. "I'm going to pay the fare for this fine young gentleman."

Gaara walked over to the box. He turned to the old women who were looking at him before glancing back at the machine. "How does this work?" he asked the bus driver, though his eyes were trained on the machine.

"Um, well, you see," the bus driver hemmed and hawed. "Hem…. haw… well…"

Bertha (Gaara smirked inwardly again) waddled over. "You just put the coins into the slot, dear."

Gaara nodded. He grabbed some sand and squished it hard, carefully shaping it into several coin-shaped masses. Gaara then proceeded to dump them one by one into the machine until the balance was at zero.

Three tickets popped out.

Gaara picked them up and gave one to each of the old ladies, placing his own in his pocket.

"It'll last you the whole day, this one," crooned Annette. "So nice of you, sonny!"

Gaara grunted in response.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Sit down, boy!" Gaara sat down. The woman must have been mad. Only a crazy person would wear a hat like that. "You too, Bertha! Bus driver, get moving!"

The bus lurched forward.

"And you!" Annette fixed her beady eyes on the passengers huddled in the back of the bus. "Calm down, why don't you! It's not like we're on our way to the morgue!" The passengers all shuffled slowly back to their seats. Either the old woman was right, or she was crazy. Most of them silently vouched for the latter.

Annette turned her head to Bertha, who was sitting on the other side of Gaara. "Honestly, some people!"

Gaara tuned out the old ladies, hoping that they'd get off the bus before he did.

Some people indeed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Argh! It's a filler chapter! Don't worry, we'll give you something to sink your teeth into in the next chapter, promise! You'll see something SNAZZY! And hardcore! Or… well… maybe not.


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